Training, Hiring, Spending Survey

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The economic downturn of the past couple years has had a significant impact on most businesses, and it has been a particularly rough patch for training departments. The old adage, “When there are cuts to be made, training gets hit first” seems to have been proven true. At GCP, we’ve heard from many clients that their budgets were slashed, and we’ve heard from plenty of prospective clients that training purchases were out of the question.

But the news seems to get better in 2011! Business, media, and government analysts report a turnaround in hiring, as seen in these news items:

"The share of executives who said they plan to hire new workers in 2011 rose to 47 percent, compared with 28 percent who forecast they would add jobs this year..."

"Companies added more workers in February than in any month in almost a year - a turning point for the economy that finally pushed the unemployment rate below 9 percent. Economists say the stronger hiring should endure all year."

"Private employers added 222,000 jobs last month, the most since April. That shows that companies are feeling more confident in the economy and about their own financial prospects. And it bolstered hopes that businesses will shift into a more aggressive hiring mode and boost the economic recovery."

"The labor market is improving slowly. On average, employers are expected to add 178,300 jobs per month this year. The economists predict that 210,000 jobs will be added to payrolls in each of the last three months of 2011."

"Small businesses have ramped up their hiring in recent months, fueled by a recovering economy and more optimistic business owners. That's a far cry from little more than a year ago, when the sector was losing thousands upon thousands of jobs each month."

Training industry reports we’ve seen indicate that this is going to be a big year in training, as well. Companies that have delayed needed training have loosening budgets that should allow them to catch up in 2011.

True for you, too? What’s going on in hiring and training in YOUR business life? Hoping that information would be helpful to you in your training decisions, we're researching for an article to be published in our next newsletter.

Please take this very short survey to help us out with some real-life data. This questionnaire should take less than 10 minutes to complete.

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